Our August UK & Ireland ancestral pilgrimage & screening tour (maps and some dates)

Jul 20, 2026 | adventure, ancestors, Artist as Family tour, camping, community on the road, cricket, culture, genealogy, Happen Films, Luddite, pilgrimage, screening event, travel | 16 comments

Hello! For the past several weeks we have been corresponding with kindly folk across the UK and Ireland, organising a route and itinerary for our August month of screenings and visitations in some of our ancestral places.

The first two screenings: While in the south of England we are attending two screenings/meet ups. The first in London at The Remakery on August 3.

and the second in Ely, Cambridgeshire, on August 10.

While in the south of England we’ll be visiting friends in Dorset and Devon, both of whom are part of the Mythopoetics Men’s Lodge that Patrick is also part of.

Some of Patrick and Woody’s ancestry in the UK is in the Midlands and Yorkshire, and we’ll be staying in Hebden Bridge in West Yorkshire, where Sylvia Plath’s gravestone is. We are co-creating a gathering and screening there too – more on that to follow.

While in London, we will get to see Yorkshire v Middlesex at Lords. Woody is super excited for that one-day match. On his Dad’s side of the family, Yorkshire homes many of his old people, and is where the yorker originates, a full pitched ball that aims to get under the batsman’s feet that Woody is getting pretty good at turning on in a game. But more than cricket, Woody will also learn where some of the revolutionary genes comes from. Here is Patrick’s midlands and Yorkshire DNA overlayed by the Luddite Triangle.

Meg’s ancestry hails from Siberia and Poland, and one day we may go on that ancestral pilgrimage too, although that might take a miracle (or a sailing boat) as the most significant oil war in history escalates just as we’re about to depart for this one.

Having spent 15 of the 20 years Artist as Family have been together refusing air travel it feels good to be travelling with intention, just before cheap oil permanently disappears.

A number of years ago Patrick’s father Robert traced (via the records) the family back to around the 12th century, that is to the earliest recorded common folk surnames (that came about for taxation purposes). And then a few years ago Patrick was gifted a DNA kit for his birthday and from this his ancestry was mapped as such:

What follows is a rough map of our August pilgrimage, including both ancestral places and screenings. We are being hosted by goodly folk along the trail and look forward to meeting up with some of our subscribers along the way. Please get in touch if you’d like more details for the various screenings and meetups.

Well, this is certainly a mappy and information dense post! Hopefully it will be useful for you as you either follow our journey or connect with us along the way. We arrive in London on August 1 and leave from Dublin on August 31.

We’d love it if you could let your friends and kin know of our screenings/Q&As in London and Cambridgeshire (more events to be posted soon). Screenings in Hebden Bridge, Findhorn Bay, Boat of Garten, Penicuik, Edinburgh, and hopefully in Ireland in the later part of the month.

We have one more online session this Thursday before we start packing – Joyful Resistance – online house and garden tour (the nuts and bolts of our systems).

Signing off for now from our cosy hearth,

AaF

Albion Rose (on travelling again, cultural ancestors and other things)

Jun 17, 2026 | adventure, art, Artist as Family tour, chance, children's learning, creative frugality, cricket, culture, hitchhiking, permaculture on the road, reculturing, school of the road | 10 comments

Patrick was in his twenties when he first saw the original works of William Blake in London. He spent a day in the Tate back then in a magical trance, admiring the hugeness of Blake in his small, modest works, mostly book-sized. Blake’s cosmology is infused in Artist as Family‘s, which is in turn infused in Dante’s. Radiance matters. Facing our fears is the path of radiance.

We are energised to be heading to the UK and Ireland in August to connect not just with blood and earth ancestors (especially in Yorkshire, Scotland and County Clare) but cultural ancestors like William and Mary Blake. We are currently organising screenings of The New Peasants with lovely folk throughout Albion and Bridget’s Isles, and mapping out, not so much the route in which we’ll hitchhike, but the main stops without any idea of how we will get there. This is the chance aspect we trust when we travel; stepping into the unknown, stepping up to challenges, facing our fears and being present to what unfolds.

Cricket in the Himalayas. Cricket in Campbells Creek. Hallway cricket. Cricket in London.

Woody is excited to be in London when Middlesex and Yorkshire play at Lords. A pilgrimage of his own, he is looking forward to meeting the gods of his beloved sport, and connect with his sporting ancestors. Cricket is a divine spark that motivates him.

That Meg was conceived in a caravan in Wales, her path was set early as a wayfarer. Travelling is as natural a state for her as radical homemaking. Wayfarer in a neopeasant sense means forager, and when we travel all three of us practice permaculture on the road.

So, our tickets are booked, thanks to the generosity of a dear friend who has loaned us the cash. We are busily saving our coins, making feral jerky, and working out how much dried fruit, nuts and other preserved foods we will be able to fit in our packs. We are delighted our online course sessions are filling up, and the topics resonate. A huge Thank You to all those who have booked, and to those who were able to make a monetary contribution. There are still places available on each session.

A ceremonial approach – guiding men’s, women’s and grief circles, vigils and other community ceremonies (July 2)

Ecological participation – guiding community forest education and wild play groups for children (July 9)

Community sufficiency – living within gift, non-monetary and subsistence economies (July 16)

Joyful resistance – online house and garden tour (the nuts and bolts of our systems) (July 23)

We are getting ready for our annual winter solstice celebration, where we will gather with community around a fire, share story and food, pause, and behold the significance of the dark. Wherever you are in the world, may your solstice be grand.

School of Applied Neopeasantry online course & a story-sharing adventure to the UK & Ireland

Jun 10, 2026 | adventure, Artist as Family course, Artist as Family online event, Artist as Family tour, belonging economies, ceremonial species approach, children's learning, community sufficiency, ecological economy making, energy descent, food sovereignty, gift economy, home economies, home educating, lifemaking, neopeasant culture making, permaculture, permapoesis, post-industrial thought, radical homemakers, reculturing, regenerative culture, relocalisation, revillaging, rites of passage, School of Applied Neopeasantry, social warming, subsistence economy, walked-for food | 12 comments

Hello Dear Readers, we are excited to offer our first online course and to share with you an invitation we’ve received to travel to the UK in August.

The University of Edinburgh has invited Patrick to examine a doctoral thesis and for Artist as Family to present The New Peasants and host a Q&A for students. While we ordinarily do such gigs via the internet, an opportunity to return to our ancestral places of origin to meet audiences and share story and food will be a joy we haven’t in the past permitted ourselves, due to the environmental and monetary costs. However, we are hearing the call and responding with intention.

Some of our ancestors come from the Luddite Triangle in the mid-north of England as well as from Scotland and Ireland, and Meg was conceived in a caravan in Wales.

While travelling we would like to screen and Q&A The New Peasants at community gatherings in Scotland, England, Wales and Ireland, and in order to fund such a story-sharing adventure we are offering the following online mini course.

Here are the four sessions on offer, which you can either join without paying or by donation. To register, please click on the links below. You are most welcome to book all four sessions or just the ones that speak to you.

Session 1. A ceremonial approach – guiding men’s, women’s and grief circles, vigils and other community ceremonies. July 2 (7pm – 8.30pm AEST) Join Patrick and Meg as they offer their experiences and processes for hosting community gatherings centred on deep listening, soul communing and connecting with the sacred.

Session 2. Ecological participation – guiding community forest education and wild play groups for children. July 9 (7pm – 8.30pm AEST) Join Patrick, Meg and Woody as they offer their experiences and processes for stewarding a bush school.

Session 3. Community sufficiency – living within gift, non-monetary and subsistence economies. July 16 (7pm – 8.30pm AEST) Join Patrick and Meg as they share all the ways they have unchained themselves from monetary incarceration and co-crafted local gift economies, starting with a few households and growing it to over 80 households over two decades.

Session 4. Joyful resistance – online house and garden tour (the nuts and bolts of our systems). July 23 (3pm – 5pm AEST) Join Patrick and Meg as they walk you through their home and garden, explaining all the main hubs that have enabled their transition.

If you can’t make any of these sessions, not to worry, as they will all be recorded and made available online. And if you can’t make the sessions but you’d like to donate to our August travels, or to our work more generally, you can do so here.

If you are in the UK or Ireland and would like to host a screening/Q&A or another type of speaking event with us in August, please feel free to get in touch.

Over the years people have enjoyed our travel writings, so yes we will be blogging our adventure again this time.

Whether you are fast approaching winter or summer solstice, we wish you warmth, the possibility of connection and we trust you are filing you baskets.

Artist as Family

The New Peasants (now available to watch worldwide)

Nov 24, 2025 | Artist as Family online event, Artist as Family tour, belonging economies, community, David Holmgren, film, Happen Films, neopeasant culture making, permaculture, post-industrial thought, radical homemakers, reculturing, storytelling, village rebuilding | 4 comments

Hello! We are very happy to share the news that The New Peasants is now available worldwide to watch. Last night we attended a Q&A screening in Hepburn, the 15th screening in Australia, which was MC’d by our friend and elder, David Holmgren. Now the film can be watched anywhere at anytime.

On Kinema, the movie platform where The New Peasants is hosted, you can privately watch the film ($5) or host a community screening. We are very happy to attend online Q&A sessions after community screenings of the film, so please get in contact with us if you’d like to host to such an event.

We are also open to groups getting in touch with us to organise house, garden and forest tours, so again, please let us know and we can discuss it further. A reminder we have two public house and garden tours coming up. There are still a handful of places left. Go here for more details.

With spring warmth, from our patch to yours,

Artist as Family

The news and high views from Tree Elbow (this week)

Oct 29, 2025 | animals in subsistence permaculture, Artist as Family tour, biological control, capitalism, central Victoria, commons, conflict, cricket, culture, David Holmgren, Djaara mother country, drones, earth stewardship, energy descent, family, farming, film, goats, healing, home, land management, lifemaking, lifetaking, permaculture, radical homemakers, war | 14 comments

Hello dear Subscribers and laissez-faire readers,

We seem to be in a pattern of weekly blog missives. We’re going along with it as there is energy for that. Here, on the southern ridge bone of the Great Connecting Range in Djaara Mother Country, winter has momentarily returned with overnight temperatures plummeting to 1 degree celsius. This chilly weather system has coincided with our water heater springing a leak, the tank of which we drained and which, in turn, has meant we can’t light our wood stove so as not to damage its water jacket chamber. So we have been rugging up and sitting with the gratitude of what this hearth means in our life, when all is well with it.

In other news, Zephyr has stepped back into a creators role for Artist as Family. Zephyr experienced the full horror of modern drone warfare in Ukraine earlier this year, and escaped with his life, while he lost a number of comrades who had also joined the Ukrainian army. First Person View (FPV) attack drones have become an ugly part of modern warfare, meaning that soldiers – people – can be tracked and attacked with flying ordnance by a remote controller. Another cowardly gift from late industrial capitalism. As part of his recovery from the trauma, Zephyr has taken up using a FPV drone for peaceful operations, and gifted us this footage he took of Tree Elbow’s spring garden this week, to help promote our forthcoming house and garden tours. Thanks Zeph!

Zephyr is setting up a small business with his drone, so please get in touch if you’d like to employ his services in central Victoria. And, please get in touch if you’d like to attend one of our full-day house and garden tours (January 18 & April 4), which also includes time in the nearby commons that we co-steward with our neighbours and our goats. Meet Pav, the newest member of the blackberry munching herd.

This week we’ve been listening to Tommy Castles’ music. Tommy composed the exquisite soundtrack for The New Peasants. One of our favourite compositions from the soundtrack is called Bike Scavenger (ft. Carl Dickens). This music enters the film as Patrick fixes the wheel of his bike trailer to ride up to the local tip – our hardware store – to collect materials. The New Peasants will shortly be available to view online, and for peeps in this neck of the woods, Radius Gallery is holding a screening and Q&A on November 23, MC’d by David Holmgren.

In other news, The Pretty Good Cricket Podcast has just dropped Episode three. This week Blue Wren and Black Cockatoo dive into a sodden pitch and welcome in their first guest.

Well, that’s our neopeasant round up for the week. For those of you who have requested a video from us about hosting men’s and women’s circles, stay tuned. We are on to it. We love hearing from you in this quiet cul-de-sac of the web, so let flow in the comments section for a little more connection.

Forthcoming house & garden tour, screenings in NZ & NY, solidarity raffle for Palestine, & a side project involving cricket and men’s health

Oct 15, 2025 | Artist as Family tour, belonging economies, cricket, farming and colonisation, film, Happen Films, men's health, neopeasant culture making, permaculture, regenerative farming, storytelling | 6 comments

Hello dear subscribers,

It’s been a while, and spring is finally springing here at Tree Elbow University in southern Djaara country.

We have a few things to share with you. Firstly, we are opening our home and garden again on Sunday January 18 and Saturday April 4 2026, and if you’d like to book a place on either tour, please message us or leave a comment and we’ll get in touch. Each tour (10am – 4pm) costs $75 per person, and includes a neopeasant morning and afternoon tea. We are just beginning to plant out our summer garden, which will be in full swing by mid January and which we’ll be harvesting from in April. Come and say g’day!

Secondly, we have now sent Yara Dowani at Om Sleiman farm – a permaculture, teaching and agroecology farm in the West Bank of Palestine – the fruits of the raffle money we raised from the film screenings of The New Peasants that we personally attended. We raised just under $1200, and were able to send the irrigation part that the farm needed and transfer the remaining money into their account. If you missed it a few months back, here is Meg speaking with Yara from Om Sleiman. Thank you to everyone who bought tickets at the screenings, and who donated via our website.

Thirdly. Speaking of The New Peasants, the latest news is that this feature documentary by Happen Films about our family’s lifeway is about to be premiered in New Zealand and in New York, at the Ceres Food Film Festival. If you feel called, please share with friends in Nelson, Aotearoa and in NYC.

And finally, we’ve been involved in supporting Blue Wren and our friend Black Cockatoo launch their new podcast, The Pretty Good Cricket Podcast on Substack. The Pretty Good Podcast is where men’s care meets regional cricket in Djaara country. We share with you the first episode here, as a taster for what is to come as the season progresses.

If you’d like to listen throughout the summer, be sure to subscribe.

Well, that’s it for now. If you have any questions or comments, please get in touch.

With spring warmth,
Artist as Family

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